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    5 Takeaways From the Utah Senate Debate

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    Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and his independent challenger, Evan McMullin, a former C.I.A. officer, met Monday evening for their only debate, a largely genteel affair that showed flashes of tension mainly around Mr. Lee’s role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep Donald J. Trump in the presidency.Here are five takeaways from an unusual debate in an unusual Senate race.Jan. 6 remains center stage.No race in the country has spotlighted the events after the 2020 election quite so much as the Senate contest in Utah. In part, that’s because Mr. McMullin and Mr. Lee agree on so many other issues. But it’s primarily because of the prominent role Mr. Lee played in cheerleading various efforts to use legal battles to keep Mr. Trump in power. Much of that cheerleading surfaced in text messages the senator sent to to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.Mr. McMullin called Mr. Lee’s actions “the most egregious betrayal of our nation’s constitution in its history by a U.S. senator,” adding: “It will be your legacy.”Mr. Lee did ultimately vote to affirm President Biden’s election, and he fell back on the language that many Republicans have used when asked if the president was fairly elected. “Joe Biden is our president,” he said. “He was chosen in the only election that matters, the election held by the Electoral College.”But he strongly denied any wrongdoing before his vote to certify the election, saying his discussions about a search for “alternative” electors who would deny the election result was merely an exploration of rumors of such electors — rumors, he said, that proved to be untrue. He accused Mr. McMullin of “a cavalier, reckless disregard for the truth” and demanded an apology.The advantage of independence.Mr. McMullin took full advantage of his status as an independent running in a conservative state, agreeing with his Republican opponent on limiting abortion, castigating Mr. Biden for stoking inflation and saying the White House’s student debt relief program would only worsen inflation. And he vowed that he would not be a “bootlicker” for Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.That caught Mr. Lee’s ear: “The suggestion that I’m beholden to either party, that I’ve been a bootlicker for either party, is folly,” he protested.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With elections next month, a Times/Siena poll shows that independents, especially women, are swinging toward the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights as voters worry about the economy.Questioning 2020: Hundreds of Republicans on the ballot this November have cast doubt on the 2020 election, a Times analysis found. Many of these candidates are favored to win their races.Georgia Senate Race: The contest, which could determine whether Democrats keep control of the Senate, has become increasingly focused on the private life and alleged hypocrisy of Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee.Jill Biden: The first lady, who has become a lifeline for Democratic candidates trying to draw attention and money in the midterms, is the most popular surrogate in the Biden administration.Mr. McMullin was also free to embrace the most popular elements of the Democrats’ achievements, like allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.He portrayed Mr. Lee — largely accurately — as an outlier in the Senate for his consistent votes against bills, even those with broad bipartisan support, and put himself forward as a problem-solver in the mold of the Utahn he hopes to join in the Senate, Mitt Romney.“If we prevail, it will make Utah the most influential state in the nation, because nothing will get through the Senate without Utah’s support,” Mr. McMullin said..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But there is a problem with his vow to be a true independent who would not caucus with either party: Without choosing sides at all, he might not be able to get any committee assignments, severely limiting his ability to wield influence.Mr. Lee was cutting in his dismissal of his opponent’s independent bid: “Supporting an opportunistic gadfly who is supported by the Democrat Party might make for interesting dinner party conversation,” he argued, but in such trying times, it made no sense for the people of Utah.Searching for distinctions on abortion.In virtually every other contested race this year, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has elevated abortion to the top of the agenda, especially for the Democrat in the race. The Senate contest in Utah has no Democrat, and no abortion-rights candidate.In conservative Utah, that allowed Mr. Lee to openly proclaim his joy over the end of Roe v. Wade and his support for allowing the states to decide whether abortion should be legal. “Roe v. Wade,” Mr. Lee said, “was a legal fiction.”Mr. McMullin said he, too, was “pro-life” and struggled to distinguish himself from his opponent, saying he opposed politicians at the extremes of both parties on the issue, those who would ban all abortions without exceptions and those who oppose all restrictions. But he did not say when he thought abortion should be legal or at what point in a pregnancy his opposition to abortion would kick in.Russia, Russia, Russia.Given Mr. McMullin’s C.I.A. background, Russia seemed like a fruitful avenue to pursue his prosecution of Mr. Lee as an extremist outlier, even in right-leaning Utah. He said the senator was the only member of Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation not to be blacklisted by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and he castigated Mr. Lee for going to Moscow in 2019 to discuss relaxing some sanctions on the Putin regime.But Mr. Lee deftly eluded the attack, saying he had gone to Russia at the invitation of the nation’s ambassador to Moscow at the time, Jon Huntsman Jr. — a popular former Utah governor.Closing the gap? Not likely.Mr. McMullin has waged a surprisingly effective campaign against Mr. Lee in a state that gave Mr. Trump 58 percent of the vote in 2020. But to beat Mr. Lee, he must win over the state’s Democrats, most of its independents and every disaffected Republican he can find. And no one is sure such a coalition will add up to 50 percent of the vote.It is also not clear Monday night’s debate will advance Mr. McMullin’s cause. The audience was stacked with supporters of Mr. Lee, who booed Mr. McMullin’s jabs, especially about Jan. 6 and the 2020 election, and cheered on the incumbent. At times, Mr. McMullin seemed flustered that he was not getting traction with his most practiced lines of attack, especially his appeals to the Mormon faithful whose ancestors “trekked across the plains and the Rockies to achieve freedom here.”“I think about all the men and women, the 14 generations of Americans who have sacrificed for this grand experiment in freedom,” he said. “They trusted you, we trusted you, and with that trust and with your knowledge of the Constitution, Senator Lee, you sought to find a weakness in our system” to “overturn the will of the people.”But the Utahns who Hillary Clinton thought would recoil in 2016 from Mr. Trump’s immoralities did not come to her aid. And they were even less in evidence for Mr. Biden in 2020.Ultimately, Mr. Lee may have had the most effective attack line, one he used often: Mr. McMullin voted for Mr. Biden. More

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      Kari Lake Won’t Pledge to Accept Election Results, and More News From the Sunday Shows

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      Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, refused on Sunday to commit to accepting the results of her election, using much of the same language that former President Donald J. Trump did when he was a candidate.“I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” Ms. Lake said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”The host, Dana Bash, then asked, “If you lose, will you accept that?” Ms. Lake, who is running against Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, responded by repeating, “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”“The people of Arizona will never support and vote for a coward like Katie Hobbs,” she added, setting up a framework in which, if Ms. Hobbs were to win, Ms. Lake could present the result as evidence of election fraud. That is one of the arguments Mr. Trump made, suggesting that the 2020 election must have been fraudulent because the idea of President Biden receiving majority support was unbelievable.Four years earlier, in 2016, Mr. Trump told supporters, “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win.”In the interview on Sunday, Ms. Lake, a former television news anchor, continued to embrace Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and said, “The real issue, Dana, is that the people don’t trust our elections.”This is a common argument among Republicans, many of whom have stoked public distrust in elections and then used that distrust to justify restrictions on voting. Ms. Lake said the distrust dated back more than two decades, citing the 2000 presidential election dispute and Democrats’ claims of irregularities in 2004 and 2016, even though the Democratic candidates conceded and there were no extrajudicial efforts to overturn the results.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.Here is what else happened on the Sunday morning talk shows.Lake and Hobbs discussed inflation.Before the exchange about elections, Ms. Lake talked about the topics that dominate campaigns when democracy is not at issue — as did Ms. Hobbs in a separate interview on CNN.Ms. Lake said she would address the impacts of inflation by eliminating Arizona’s taxes on rent and groceries and using the state’s general fund to replace lost revenue for local governments. Ms. Hobbs said she would provide child care assistance and a tax credit for career and technical education and try to increase housing construction to lower home prices.Ms. Hobbs also reiterated her support for abortion rights. When asked if she supported “any legal limits” on abortion, she did not endorse any, noting that abortions late in pregnancy were very rare and saying, “Politicians don’t belong in those decisions.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Ms. Lake, who has campaigned on promises of an immigration crackdown, was asked whether she believed the United States had a responsibility to accept asylum seekers fleeing political violence.“We have a great legal immigration system, a very generous legal immigration system. But we can’t afford to take on the world’s problems right now when so many Americans are struggling, so many Arizonans are struggling,” Ms. Lake said. She also said that many asylum applications were fraudulent.Evan McMullin said he wouldn’t join either party.Evan McMullin, an independent candidate, is posing an unexpectedly strong challenge to Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, though Mr. Lee is still favored. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. McMullin said unequivocally that he would not caucus with either party, even if his affiliation made the difference between a Democratic or Republican majority.Mr. McMullin, who also ran for president as an independent in 2016, said that his campaign was building a “coalition” of support across party lines and that he had made a commitment to that coalition to “maintain my independence.”The host, Chuck Todd, pressed him multiple times, first asking whether that commitment would extend through all six years of a Senate term and then asking twice whether his thinking would change if party control were on the line. His responses were consistent.“I will not caucus with Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “I’m going to maintain my independence because I think our country needs that, and certainly our state needs that. I’ve made that commitment, and for party bosses and others in Washington, they’re going to have to figure out what this means for them.”He argued that having an independent senator would give Utah more influence.“With Senator Lee, we get none of that,” he said. “He sits on his hands until it’s time to vote no, and then he goes and complains about our country on cable news, and I’m just not going to do that.”Mr. McMullin said that he would not have voted for the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act “as written” but that he supported parts of it, including allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. He would not say whether he would support federal legislation on abortion, saying only that he opposed bans without exceptions for rape and incest and supported increasing access to contraception.The Colorado Senate candidates made their cases.Senator Michael Bennet and his Republican opponent, Joe O’Dea, were interviewed back-to-back on CNN.The main topic was inflation, for which Mr. O’Dea blamed the $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus package passed in March 2021 and the Biden administration’s energy policies. Mr. Bennet, a Democrat, blamed “broken global supply chains” and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (The causes of inflation — which is happening all over the world — are complex, and multiple factors are driving it.)Mr. Bennet said he believed the Inflation Reduction Act would live up to its name once its provisions kick in fully next year. He emphasized the billions of dollars it includes for clean energy development, arguing that the funding would allow the country to “increase our energy independence and our economic strength and reduce emissions” at the same time.Mr. O’Dea called for loosening the permitting process for new energy projects, naming natural gas alongside renewable energy but, notably, not mentioning oil or coal. “It’ll cause the price to come down, inflation will go away — that’s how you do it,” he said.Mr. O’Dea also said, as he has before, that he did not want Mr. Trump to run for president again and would “actively campaign against” him in a Republican primary; he named Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott as candidates he could support instead. He did not say what he would do in the general election if Mr. Trump won the primary.In case you missed it …Hundreds of Republican midterm candidates have questioned or spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Together, they represent a growing consensus in the Republican Party and a potential threat to American democracy.In Oregon’s wild governor’s race, an independent candidate is siphoning Democratic votes and Phil Knight, the billionaire Nike co-founder, is pouring in money, giving an anti-abortion Republican a path to victory.A new breed of veterans is running for the House on the far right, challenging assumptions that adding veterans to Congress would foster bipartisanship and cooperation. More

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      In Utah, a Trump Loyalist Sends an S.O.S. to Romney

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      The appeal carried the unmistakable whiff of desperation. That it was delivered on live television only heightened the dramatic tension.A Utah Republican, Senator Mike Lee, was publicly begging a fellow Utah Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, for a simple act of solidarity: an endorsement in his campaign for re-election. One that, in Mr. Lee’s telling, could amount to no less than an act of salvation, as he battles for political survival against an unexpectedly fierce challenger, the independent candidate Evan McMullin.“Please, get on board,” Mr. Lee said, looking into the camera and addressing Mr. Romney by name on Tuesday night. “Help me win re-election. Help us do that. You can get your entire family to donate to me.”But Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney are not merely fellow Utah Republicans. And this was not just any television show.Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney were — and evidently remain — antagonists in the lingering drama of Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Lee played a key role in support of President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and cling to power. Mr. Romney was a stalwart opponent of it.And Mr. Lee was making his appeal to Mr. Romney on Tuesday night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program — a venue in which Mr. Romney has been routinely roasted, for years, before audiences of millions of conservative viewers.The irony of the moment seemed lost on both Mr. Lee and the show’s host, though that may have been a bit of a shared ruse.Either way, audacity was in abundant supply.Mr. Lee’s plea for Mr. Romney’s assistance, after all, came after Mr. Lee’s votes in opposition to three bipartisan bills that Mr. Romney helped to pass, on infrastructure, gun safety and semiconductor manufacturing. Mr. Lee denounced the infrastructure bill, for one, as “an orgiastic convulsion of federal spending.”The S.O.S. to his fellow senator also appeared to ignore Mr. Lee’s own actions of intraparty sabotage, dating back a dozen years: Mr. Lee refused to endorse Mr. Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign. He declined in 2012 to endorse the senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, even as his own chief of staff openly predicted Mr. Hatch’s defeat. And Mr. Lee first won his own seat in 2010 by orchestrating the defeat of a popular Republican senator, Robert F. Bennett, during the state’s Republican convention.What Mr. Lee was not ignoring, however, was a new poll published in Utah’s Deseret News this week showing Mr. Lee leading Mr. McMullin 41 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Self-described moderates made up a plurality of those undecided voters, as the center of Utah’s political spectrum seems to be agonizing over which candidate to coalesce behind.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.“We are winning this race, and Mike Lee is panicked,” Mr. McMullin said in an interview on Wednesday.Evan McMullin is not far behind Mr. Lee according to a Deseret News poll that also shows a high number of undecided voters.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressIn fact, Mr. McMullin’s task of uniting independents, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans remains daunting in Utah, a state that gave Mr. Trump 58 percent of the vote in 2020. When Mr. McMullin ran for president in 2016 as an independent, he netted 21.5 percent in his home state. (One of those voters was Mr. Lee.)Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, which conducted the poll, stressed that Mr. Lee “is still in the driver’s seat,” but, he said, with so many centrist voters still undecided, “this is one still to watch.”The FiveThirtyEight polling average still has Mr. Lee up by 7.6 percent.“Let’s be clear, Mike Lee is leading this race,” said Matt Lusty, an adviser to the Lee campaign. “Every reliable poll shows Senator Lee with a significant lead, and our internal polling gives us even greater confidence in the strong support he has across the state.” Mr. Lee himself declined to comment.But no contest in the country is as closely tied to the failed efforts to deny President Biden’s victory as the Utah Senate race. And no other race is as squarely centered on the fate of representative democracy.Mr. Lee appears particularly spooked by the $6.3 million in campaign contributions — a small portion of that through ActBlue, an online Democratic fund-raising tool — that have flowed to Mr. McMullin, who has vowed to caucus with neither party if he wins..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Lee was exaggerating a little when he told Mr. Carlson, “Evan McMullin is raising millions of dollars off of ActBlue, the Democratic donor database, based on this idea that he’s going to defeat me and help perpetuate the Democratic majority.” But his fears were clear.Mr. Romney, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has explained his decision not to endorse Mr. Lee or Mr. McMullin by saying “both are good friends.”But the personal divide between him and Mr. Lee over the events surrounding the 2020 election remains deep, and is playing a role now, according to Stuart Stevens, a senior official in Mr. Romney’s 2012 presidential run who is also an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Romney became the first senator from a president’s party ever to vote to convict him after Mr. Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, when he sided with Democrats to try to throw Mr. Trump out of office for abuse of power, for conditioning military aid to Ukraine on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s launching an investigation into Mr. Biden.Mr. Romney again voted to convict Mr. Trump in 2021 for inciting the attack on the Capitol.Mr. Lee, in contrast, was an active participant in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in office. He cheered Mr. Trump on for weeks in late 2020, and privately offered in a text to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, “a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him.”Mr. Lee also endorsed a plan to have legislatures in “a very small handful of states” carried by Mr. Biden put forward pro-Trump electors, as part of a scheme to allow Vice President Mike Pence to reject Mr. Biden’s victory.Ultimately, Mr. Lee backed away from those plans and voted to certify Mr. Biden’s election, unlike eight of his Senate colleagues, a point that the Lee campaign stresses.But turning against a plan as it was failing does not exonerate him, Mr. McMullin argues.“Senator Lee, who called himself a constitutional conservative and who swore an oath to the Constitution, betrayed the Constitution in an effort to overturn the will of the people by recruiting fake electors to topple American democracy,” Mr. McMullin said in the interview. “It was one of the most egregious betrayals of the American republic in its history.”Senators Mike Lee, left, and Mitt Romney during former President Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment hearings in January 2020. Mr. Romney voted to convict.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIt is, in some sense, that inconstancy that has gotten Mr. Lee in trouble: his willingness to challenge the powers in his own party, then tack back when his base demands it.“Reaping what he sowed is a good way to put it,” quipped Christopher F. Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.Mr. Lee led the floor fight to stop Mr. Trump’s nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention, called for Mr. Trump to exit the race after the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, and voted for Mr. McMullin in protest. Then he became one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters.“Politics is an ongoing character test, and the people of Utah are going to have to ask themselves if he’s passed,” said Mr. Stevens, the former Romney aide.How real a threat Mr. McMullin poses to Mr. Lee’s re-election remains to be seen. Both sides produce internal polls that serve their purposes, Mr. Lee’s showing him with a double-digit lead, Mr. McMullin’s showing him barely overtaking the incumbent.It’s entirely possible that Mr. Lee’s dire-sounding appearance on Fox News proves a reprise of the pleas that Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, made toward the end of his 2020 re-election run as he watched his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, rake in a record $57 million in a single quarter, $132 million in total, for his challenge: All panic aside, Mr. Graham ultimately won by more than 10 percentage points.Still, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans serving on the House Jan. 6 Committee, will campaign with Mr. McMullin next week in Salt Lake City, trying to rally disaffected Republicans, a crucial bloc after Utah Democrats decided not to field their own candidate. The state’s most important Democrats, Mayor Jenny Wilson of Salt Lake County and former Representative Ben McAdams, are backing Mr. McMullin.Though Mr. McMullin says the preservation of democracy is the organizing theme of his campaign, he has branched out to tar Mr. Lee as “the most ineffective member of the Senate,” contrasting his ideological stands with Mr. Romney’s productivity.And, as Mr. Lee’s campaign tries to project an air of confidence, his appearance on Mr. Carlson’s show projected anything but.Pressing Mr. Romney to do the right thing as a Republican, he repeatedly warned Fox viewers that Mr. Romney’s mere neutrality could give Mr. McMullin — “a closeted Democrat,” as he put it — a victory, and ensure continued Democratic control of the Senate.On Wednesday, Mr. Lusty, the Lee campaign adviser, said his boss still hoped that Mr. Romney would come around. “Senator Lee sees it as important for all members of the party to stand together,” he said.But if Mr. Lee had truly hoped to change Mr. Romney’s mind, there were few avenues likely to be less persuasive than Mr. Carlson’s show.As Mr. Lee spoke, Mr. Romney’s picture was shown with a beret and handlebar mustache crudely superimposed, over the caption “Pierre Delecto Strikes Again” — the nom de plume Mr. Romney once got caught using on Twitter.“Mitt Romney has stood up to withering criticism from Trump and others,” said Mr. Karpowitz, the B.Y.U. professor. “I’m not sure Tucker Carlson is going to move him.” More

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      Utah U.S. Senate Primary Election Results 2022

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      Source: Election results and race calls from The Associated Press. The Times estimates the number of remaining votes based on historic turnout data and reporting from The Associated Press. These are only estimates and they may not be informed by official reports from election officials.The New York Times’s results team is a group of graphics editors, engineers and reporters who build and maintain software to publish election results in real-time as they are reported by results providers. To learn more about how election results work, read this article.The Times’s election results pages are produced by Michael Andre, Aliza Aufrichtig, Neil Berg, Matthew Bloch, Sean Catangui, Andrew Chavez, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Asmaa Elkeurti, Tiffany Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Will Houp, Josh Katz, Aaron Krolik, Jasmine C. Lee, Rebecca Lieberman, Ilana Marcus, Jaymin Patel, Rachel Shorey, Charlie Smart, Umi Syam, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Reporting by Grace Ashford, Alana Celii, Reid Epstein, Nicholas Fandos, Lalena Fisher, Alyce McFadden, Azi Paybarah, Jazmine Ulloa and Jonathan Weisman; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White; editing by Wilson Andrews, Kenan Davis, Amy Hughes and Ben Koski. More

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      in Elections

      Illinois Governor’s Race Shows G.O.P.’s Lurch to Right (With Nudge From Left)

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      Republican voters in Illinois nominated a conservative hard-liner for governor on Tuesday, lifting State Senator Darren Bailey out from a bruising and costly primary that saw spending from three dueling billionaires — including the current Democratic governor, who spent tens of millions of dollars to meddle in the Republican contest.Mr. Bailey defeated Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, the moderate Black mayor of the state’s second-biggest city, in a race that captured the ongoing power struggle inside the Republican Party. On one side were the old-guard fiscal conservatives who bankrolled Mr. Irvin. On the other side was an ascendant G.O.P. wing that wants to take a more combative approach to politics inspired by former President Donald J. Trump.Kenneth Griffin, a Chicago-based Republican and hedge-fund founder, plunged $50 million into Mr. Irvin’s campaign in an effort to find a moderate Republican who could compete against Democrats in a blue state. But his preferred candidate came under attack not just from Mr. Bailey and other Republicans, but also from the Democratic Governors Association and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a fellow billionaire and a Democrat. And Mr. Bailey had his own billionaire: Richard Uihlein, a top financier on the right.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois at a deli in Chicago on Tuesday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe Illinois race is the most expensive example yet of a high-risk 2022 Democratic strategy of injecting money into Republican primaries to help more extreme G.O.P. candidates in the hopes that Democrats will face weaker general-election opponents.Democrats welcomed Mr. Bailey to the general election by tagging the opponent they had helped engineer as a “MAGA extremist.”“Bailey is far too conservative for Illinois,” said Noam Lee, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association.Mr. Bailey called Chicago a “hellhole” during one primary debate, was once removed from a legislative session for refusing to wear a mask and has said he opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Mr. Trump endorsed him over the weekend.Democrats also spent money to shape three Republican primaries in Colorado on Tuesday for Senate, governor and the House — and lost in all three.Worried that an eroding national political climate could endanger Senator Michael Bennet, Democrats spent heavily to intervene in the Republican primary. They helped lift up State Representative Ron Hanks, a far-right Republican who marched at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to fend off energetic challenges from two fellow Democrats, while the four-way G.O.P. contest has been playing in part like a referendum on Donald J. Trump.Where the Candidates Stand: Ahead of the primaries for governor on June 28, our political reporters questioned the seven candidates on crime, taxes, abortion and more.Maloney vs. Nadler: New congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats — including New York City’s last remaining Jewish congressman — on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.But the effort failed as a more moderate businessman, Joe O’Dea, won on Tuesday. His campaign celebrated by handing out faux newspapers to supporters at his victory party with the banner headline “O’DEA DEFEATS SCHUMER.”In his victory speech in Denver, Mr. O’Dea pledged to be “like a Republican Joe Manchin” and lampooned the failed intervention by Democrats as “everything that the American people hate about politics.”“It is pure cynicism and deceit,” he said.Illinois and Colorado were two of seven states holding primaries or runoffs on Tuesday, the first races since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week and thrust abortion back to the center of the American political debate.Governor Kathy Hochul speaks to supporters after winning the Democratic nomination Tuesday night.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesIn New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul won the Democratic nomination for her first full term after succeeding Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned under pressure over sexual misconduct. In Oklahoma, voters were sorting through a host of Republicans for a rare open Senate seat. And in Mississippi, one House Republican was defeated in a runoff and another survived a right-wing challenger. There were also contests in Utah and South Carolina, including for Senate.Democrats had also attempted to meddle in the Republican primary for governor of Colorado, where an outside group spent money linking Greg Lopez, a former mayor of Parker, to Mr. Trump in a backhanded attempt to elevate him over Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent.But Ms. Ganahl prevailed and will face Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who became the first openly gay man elected to a governorship in 2018 and is seeking re-election.Democrats had also spent in Colorado’s open Eighth District to aid another far-right candidate. The seat is expected to be competitive in the fall.In another closely watched Colorado race, Tina Peters, a Mesa County clerk who has been charged with seven felonies related to allegations that she tampered with voting machines to try to prove the 2020 presidential election was rigged, lost her bid for the Republican nomination to oversee elections as secretary of state.Ms. Peters has pleaded not guilty, and the indictment made her something of a hero to the election-denial movement spurred by Mr. Trump. But that was not enough for her to defeat Pam Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk.On Tuesday, one voter, Sienna Wells, a 31-year-old software developer and registered independent who lives in Mesa County, cast her ballot in the Republican primary to oppose Ms. Peters, calling her “delusional.”“She says she wants free and fair elections and stuff like that, but if she gets in, she’ll be the one performing fraud,” Ms. Wells said. “It’s awful.”Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who is running for Colorado secretary of state, spoke at an event in Grand Junction in June.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesIn Illinois, an aggressive remapping by Democrats in the once-a-decade redistricting process created a half-dozen competitive House primaries, including two that pitted incumbents of the same party against each other. The races were the latest battlefields for the two parties’ ideological factions.In the Chicago suburbs, Representative Sean Casten defeated Representative Marie Newman after both Democrats were drawn into the same district. Ms. Newman had defeated a moderate Democratic incumbent to win her seat just two years ago. But she has since come under investigation for promising a job to an opponent to get him to exit her race.The victory for Mr. Casten came two weeks after he suffered a personal tragedy: the death of his 17-year-old daughter.In a sprawling and contorted new district that wraps around Springfield, Ill., two Republican incumbents, Representatives Rodney Davis and Mary Miller, were at odds. The contest has involved more than $11.5 million in outside spending. Mr. Davis is an ally of Republican leaders and has benefited from PAC spending linked to Mr. Griffin, the Republican billionaire, and the crypto industry. Ms. Miller was supported by spending from the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group.Representative Mary Miller greeted supporters at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Mendon, Ill.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesMs. Miller won. Her success was a victory for Mr. Trump, who endorsed her months ago in a contest that was seen as the greatest test of his personal influence on Tuesday. Ms. Miller made headlines at a rally with Mr. Trump last weekend, when she hailed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe as a “victory for white life.” An aide said she had misread a prepared line about the “right to life.”In Chicago, Representative Danny K. Davis, a veteran 80-year-old Black Democrat, confronted a robust primary challenge from Kina Collins, a 31-year-old gun safety activist, in one of the nation’s most solidly Democratic seats.. Representative Michael Guest at a campaign event in Magee, Miss., in June.Rogelio V. Solis/Associated PressIn Mississippi, Representative Michael Guest held off a primary challenge in the Third District from Michael Cassidy, a Navy veteran.Mr. Guest had drawn attacks as one of the three dozen Republicans who voted to authorize an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, even though such a commission was never formed. Instead, a Democrat-led House committee is now investigating.But after Mr. Cassidy narrowly outpaced Mr. Guest in the first round of voting, a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, spent more than $500,000 attacking Mr. Cassidy in the final two weeks before the runoff.In Mississippi’s Fourth District, Representative Steven Palazzo was defeated by Sheriff Mike Ezell of Jackson County on Tuesday. Mr. Palazzo, seeking a seventh term, had earned only 31 percent of the vote in the first round and was seen as vulnerable after a congressional ethics investigation accused him in 2021 of misspending campaign funds and other transgressions.In Oklahoma, the early resignation of Senator James M. Inhofe, a Republican who will retire in January, created a rare open seat in the solidly Republican state and drew an expansive primary field.Representative Markwayne Mullin advanced to the runoff and the second spot was still too close to call late Tuesday. T.W. Shannon, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House, Luke Holland, who served as Mr. Inhofe’s chief of staff, and State Senator Nathan Dahm were competing for the second runoff spot. Scott Pruitt, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was on track for a weak fifth-place finish.In Utah, Senator Mike Lee, the Republican incumbent, defeated two primary challengers. In a state that is a conservative stronghold, Democrats decided not to put forward a nominee and instead endorsed Evan McMullin, an independent who made a long-shot bid for president in 2016 by appealing to anti-Trump Republicans.Ryan Biller More